Roots

This morning while we were cutting cups, we noticed something we don't see very often with these heavy clay push-up greens; deep roots.

You can see at the bottom of this 8 inch plug are white root hairs coming out.  Normally the roots don't go beyond 4-5" even during this time of year. 

 

These roots are a direct result from the deep tine aerification that we did last fall.  In October of last year, we aerified the greens with a 10" long solid spike.  This made a deep channel for the roots to follow and it helped with compaction and drainage.  The deeper roots we have, the healthier the turf will be. With deeper roots we will be able to dry the surface of the greens down and still maintain healthy turf.  We will continue to deep tine the greens every fall to promote healthier greens.